AV News: AAV's - The Future of Transportation?

Perhaps Autonomous Aerial Vehicles are the future of transportation!? Only time will tell! For now we have the prototypes of future conveyances for your viewing pleasure. Who knows maybe you'll be taking the Ehang 184 or the Volocopter to work soon!
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Hi, thanks for checking in with Air Vuz News! I’m Kendall Mark! As you might already know, we love unmanned vehicles. Now though, it is looking more and more like manned drones could be the wave of the future!
You might remember seeing the Ehang 184 here on Air Vuz News. The pod-like drone debuted at CES 2016 and was the first commercial drone capable of carrying human passengers.
Now Ehang has some competition in the AAV marketplace! A new Autonomous Aerial Vehicle capable of carrying humans just made its maiden flight in Germany. It’s called the Volocopter!
The Volocopter is fully autonomous, but it further blurs the line between drone and helicopter by allowing the pilot to control it with a joystick!
With its 18 rotors it has built in redundancy, as it can fly even if some rotors fail. The Volocopter VC200 wants to replace cars as the future of commuting! But so far it’s first and only flight lasted only 3 minutes. Kind of an expensive toy to make that daily trip to the mailbox!

With its top speed of about 60 miles per hour, vehicles like this could one day replace taxies! But for now the Volocopter is limited to 15 miles per hour and 70 feet of elevation.
The VC200 and the Ehang 184 aren’t the only AAV’s trying to substitute for cars though…
Quadro UAS is a one man operation by this man from Holland. It’s a labor of love for him, hopefully his prototype will be done soon so he can realize the dream of Autonomous Human transport!


The Flike combines flying and bikes. Its being developed in Hungary.. Sweet! Looks a little like…
…The Aero X - from Los Angeles firm Aerofex Inc, pretty nifty! It can rise 10 feet from the ground and travel at a maximum of 45 miles per hour, with or without a person on top. In development since 2008, the vehicle is set for release in 2017. Make a $5,000 deposit now to reserve yours now if you can! It will retail at $85,000.
With any luck, these vehicles won’t have the same fate as similar prototypes, like the army’s Airgeep from 1959… It looked cool and even had certain tactical advantages, such as the ability to fly under radar and over all terrain. It wasn’t feasible though and it was shelved...
With several options for the future, who knows? Maybe you’ll soon be flying work!?
AT AIRVUZ NEWS, I’M KENDALL.